


Ringtone

by snarechan



Category: Transformers, Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Bad Romance - Freeform, M/M, Plug and Play, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-05
Updated: 2008-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:34:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarechan/pseuds/snarechan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place before the series. While performing his civic duty, a task second only to shooting himself in the head, Starscream is contacted by Shockwave with a message that just can't wait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ringtone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stormbringer986](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=stormbringer986).



> A couple days ago it was stormbringer986's birthday, so as a surprise gift I wrote her some Shockwave/Starscream, since she made the mistake of commenting one time that she wished there was more of it. 8D SEE, I DO PAY ATTENTION.

_I’m the most efficient and capable Decepticon in Megatron’s army, temporarily residing in second command to the nimrod himself, and what does he have me do? Monitor duty,_ Starscream growled indignantly to himself, concluding with, _How absolutely undignified._

He was slouched back in his seat, feet crossed over the console and his hands behind his head to cushion them as he glared heatedly at the ceiling. There were no screens there, and he didn’t intend to pay any his attention, seeing as he believed this task was _beneath_ him to begin with.

He had numerous Autobot kills on his record – well over a thousand since he’d begun keeping track – and his cunning was indisputably unrivaled. It should have been obvious to anyone that this sort of task was better suited for simpleminded grunts – namely everyone else save himself. Sitting here twiddling his thumbs and supervising incoming signals and video feeds was a complete waste of his valuable talents.

Megatron obviously disagreed.

 _Not like anyone actually_ calls, _anyway,_ he continued to mentally grouse, shutting off his optics entirely with the intention of catching some recharge. The odds of them running into anything were the same as someone dropping them a line, which was to say, zero to none; they were currently meandering through a complete dead zone. His shift was a solid orbital cycle, and expecting neither interference nor any sorts of communications, he presumed to get some well-deserved rest.

As soon as he was set to shut down his last process, there came a sharp beeping noise, startling Starscream to the point of jumping to awareness far too quickly. Some of his systems weren’t prepared to be brought back online, and most were out of sequence, which left him flailing his arms to regain his lost balance. Inevitably, he went tumbling back, head meeting the floor with a heavy clank.

He cursed wildly, reciting a lot of insulting things about everything and nothing as he righted himself, at least enough to flop back up to the console to see what the disturbance was. Out of the numerously colored lights strung alongside one of the screens, a small red one flashed, signifying an incoming call that was of the highest encryption. Starscream was more curious than perturbed by the odd occurrence, albeit a little agitated, too, especially at its timing.

Pressing a sequence of buttons, he droned into a microphone, “You’ve reached the Decepticon vessel Nemesis. What the slag do you want?”

His answer came in the form of all the monitors flashing in succession, revealing one solid image as opposed to individual scenes. An Autobot with a turquoise and gray color scheme stared down at him, and Starscream couldn’t help letting his mind supply another long string of cussing at the image. It wasn’t the red insignia on his chest that made him suddenly very disappointed, but the specific mech in question.

“Where’s Lord Megatron?” the mech known as Shockwave demanded, not bothering with an introduction or greeting.

Equally as cold, Starscream snapped, “Not present, or didn’t you notice?”

The jibe at the other’s eyesight went ignored, as most personal insults did, and instead the other merely rephrased his question. “Then can you go get him? This is urgent.”

The flier snorted, righting himself since the notion of the other having to look down at him was bothersome enough, large image or not, and used his heel to snap his chair back up. He made a point of flourishing it into position and plopping back down into the seat, resuming his earlier position before he was _rudely_ reawakened.

“I was given explicit instructions not to disturb him, under any circumstances,” he finally informed, brushing off imaginary particles from his armor.

“Surely he would understand being alerted to a level nine?” Shockwave inquired blandly, though the information was anything but something to be referred to lightly. The words had even Starscream, whose wont to never being concerned about anything outside of his own gain or overthrowing Megatron (though really, those two practically went hand-in-hand), lifting his head with a jerk to finally give the other his full, undivided attention. The other should have been honored, really; it wasn’t often Starscream paid attention to those outside himself.

“Level _nine?_ ”

“Yes,” he confirmed simply, the curt response making Starscream grind his dentals in irritation.

He rose out of his chair and slammed both hands onto the console, leaning in towards the screens as he demanded to be given further details. Out of what he was sure was pure spite, Shockwave promptly denied him, reminding the second-in-command that it was against protocol to recite instances of that high importance to anyone save Lord Megatron. While Shockwave was capable of shrugging off insults with grace, humility, and indifference, Starscream felt the taunt as surely as if someone had aimed an energy blast to his head and shot right for his ego. He wasn’t nearly as elegant in handling such things, either.

“He’s not _here;_ it’s impossible to retrieve him at this time.”

“Not even on a private line?”

“No,” Starscream blatantly lied. He knew their leader had a way of being contacted, he just didn’t want to use it, nor did he want to go through the effort of explaining to him why he was being bothered against a direct order. To be exact, he just didn’t feel like it. Megatron had put him in charge of this lousy assignment, so in a way, he felt justified in retaining a bit of highly valuable information – if he could get Shockwave to just _spill_ already.

“He’s in a restricted area in active Autobot territory and doesn’t want to risk a message becoming intercepted or having his location pinpointed. I’m sure you understand such a concept _perfectly,_ ” Starscream elaborated, then snuck in, “I can take a message, if you’d like.”

Shockwave’s expression didn’t change, _couldn’t_ really change, but he got the distinct impression that the other was unconvinced by his thoughtful gesture – he couldn’t begin to understand why. Was it the smile?

Perhaps he should have downplayed the smile.

Yeah, probably shouldn’t have smiled.

“This information cannot be relayed publically like this; it’s not safe. I need to hand it over personally, and _now._ My transport will only be passing a location close to your current whereabouts for a few cycles, and after that the chance will be lost for an undisclosed amount of time. The possibility of this chance reoccurring is-”

“I can do the math,” Starscream interrupted, his patience long since extinguished. “If this is as important as you say, then I’ll just have to retrieve it myself.”

“…Are you sure Lord Megatron is indisposed?”

“Positive.”

“Is there another operative that can be sent? Perhaps Lugnut?”

The flier had to catch himself before he unintentionally reached up with both hands to strangle the other, the urge to do so practically overshadowing the logical sector of his processor that reminded him that Shockwave wasn’t actually physically there to have his head forcibly removed, but if he _was,_ then the flier could have taken him, night or day, and without firing a single shot. He was comforted by this fact, and in turn was calmed enough to reply with something that didn’t involve threatening him with his fists or jet burners being set on sensitive circuitry.

“Honestly, Shockwave. We’re a crew of _five;_ do you think Megatron would have many to spare when he’s not expecting any contacts?”

“It’s hardly my place to question his motives,” the other answered simply, promptly ending their conversation altogether a beat later with. “Don’t be late.”

The screens broke into static for a moment, blacking out one by one before returning to their previous state of picking up live feed from areas both inside and outside of the ship – save one. In the right hand corner, an endless string of code was being fed into a machine, the text running across it turning from red to purple when a letter or number was translated. The entire process, a complicated deciphering that would have taken over fifty super computers to complete, was finished in the time it took Starscream to glance over and acknowledge the loose coordinates it produced.

With that memorized, he left the room without a second thought, passing by Blackarachnia on his way.

“Going out,” he said by way of leaving notice.

As expected, she acknowledged him with a curt “whatever” and kept walking, not looking up from her work and continuing towards the main control room to complete who-knew-what. That was the nice thing about Decepticons: no one cared what the others were doing unless it was their hide on the line, and nobody knew how to care less than the rest than those Megatron surrounded himself with. If he had the capability to be touched, Starscream might have been by the gesture because scheming was never made easier.

Reaching the launching bay, he tapped his foot as he waited for the hatch to open, then transformed and followed Shockwave’s directions, out to some asteroid field that was supposedly two-thirds the distance between the Nemesis and the route Shockwave was assigned to take to reach some Autobot outpost. The location was inexact on purpose, he _knew_ this, but it was still frustrating to hunt the other down. There was something in the space rocks that was throwing off his radar, probably why the other had picked it since, if even his technology was suffering, then the enemy couldn’t be faring much better.

He had to be careful at a certain point, the asteroids beginning to cluster dangerously close to one another and increasing in size. When it became impossible to fly any further, he randomly chose a rock to land on to survey his surroundings. Nothing stood out to him as blatantly “meet here,” so he kicked a nearby boulder in mild annoyance and crossed his arms over his chest, readying to abandon this whole escapade entirely for being useless, when suddenly, he was jumped from behind. The clanking of gears extending alerted him to his not being alone, fingers wrapping around his mouth to silence his shouts and drag him down into a nearby crater.

Starscream didn’t like being outdone.

His thrusters came to life when he was pulled over the edge, propelling him back so swiftly that he plowed into his would-be assailant and knocked them both down to the ground, their frames kicking up dust and other space debris. As expected, Starscream quickly gained the upper hand by flipping their positions, an arm reaching around their neck in a vice-like grip while his free one aimed a rifle at the other’s head. Obediently, the attacker in his arms raised their hands in surrender, allowing him to get a good look at them.

It was Shockwave.

“Are your circuits _fried?!_ ” the flier screeched indignantly, pressing his weapon directly against the mech’s cranium. “What did you think you were trying to pull by sneaking up on me?”

“I was attempting to ensure that you were discrete,” Shockwave droned.

“I’m a Decepticon, the epitome of discrete!”

Ignoring the high-powered device aimed at him, Shockwave tilted his head towards him and attentively pointed out, “You’re yelling.”

“ _I’m not yelling!_ ”

The spy didn’t bother to say another word on the subject. Eventually, with a scoff of disgust, the flier roughly shoved the other away and lowered his null-ray, refusing to turn it off. Shockwave recovered fast enough, turning around to face him and not much else.

Impatiently, Starscream held out a hand and prompted, “Well? Hand over the data already! I have vital duties to return to.”

The second-in-command didn’t know what he should have expected – originally, he’d assumed chips of some sort, maybe even something as old as a disc, since those tended to be harder to track these days due to technological advances relying heavily on smaller devices. But when the other didn’t produce a single piece of physical record, he began to grow suspicious.

“I was under intense scrutiny by the Autobot superiors; it was too risky to copy the data directly to an additional source. This left me with no other alternative but to memorize the data myself.”

Starscream didn’t understand the problem; sure, it made things a bit complicated, but he didn’t know what was stopping the other from telling him the information. He said as much, stating that the other wasn’t the _only_ one with advanced processor capacity, until the other educated him on exactly how much information he had to give. As mechanical beings, they did possess the capability to contain a large amount of information for extended periods of time, some even more than others, but what the other was proposing to deliver well exceeded an amount that could be verbalized.

“The slag did you discover that large?” Starscream asked incredulously. “Under normal circumstances it would take _stellar cycles_ for me to retain even half the amount you’ve gathered! It’s impossible to accomplish in this short of a-”

An idea occurred to him – it wasn’t a very pleasant one, either, and as his face fell and he looked down at the other, the dull stare he received confirmed that Shockwave had already arrived to the same conclusion he had.

“No.”

“This is the only option left to us.”

“ _No._ ”

“Can you think of any other way? I am open to suggestions.”

“Yeah, I got a suggestion for you,” Starscream stated haughtily, turning on a heel and preparing to take off. “I’m heading back to base.”

This time, he was prepared for an assault. He allowed the sound of gears grinding in transformation to tell him where to aim, and turning around to kneel down, he opened fire. Starscream was in no mood to be playing these kinds of games with the spy, and by all appearances, Shockwave was rather fed up as well – he had even converted to his original appearance. The flier was completely blindsided as Shockwave forwent his extending arms to instead tackle the other to the ground, smacking one of his guns aside.

“I did not spend all this time serving the enemy, hacking systems and putting up with Sentinel Minor to be denied here by your avid selfishness. You will comply.”

In the end, they resulted in a stalemate, all of their limbs locked and neither able to struggle an inch apart. Starscream was more vocal in his complaints by now, leaving no doubt in Shockwave’s mind exactly where he stood with the second-in-command. Whatever he may have contemplated retaliating with, Shockwave didn’t have the chance to express it because his communicator activated, immediately stilling both Decepticons into staring dumbfounded at the interruption. When quiet prevailed, Shockwave opened the link.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Longarm! Where in the universe are you? Ultra Magnus is about to pop a gasket at your disappearing act.”

“I picked up a disturbance close by and wished to investigate. Didn’t you receive my announcement?”

“…What announcement?”

“Never mind. Please inform Ultra Magnus that I’ll return shortly.”

“Better make sure it’s measured in astroseconds. Over and out.”

“Over and out,” Shockwave parted, his single red lens shifting around until it was focused on Starscream once again. He pressed it in close, nearly causing the flier to go cross-eyed as he tried to remain intent on not letting it out of his sights. From this angle, it did appear…more intimidating than usual. To someone’s face, Starscream would claim to not being afraid of anything – but he knew his limits, and he was a coward, so being stared down by that single optic was similar to gazing into the Pit itself.

Shamelessly, he gulped.

“You can’t be serious about this! I’m your superior; this is mutiny!”

“We are out of time, Starscream. The priority level of my mission grants me the ability to overrule even your position, and if you continue to retaliate, it will be _your_ head before Lord Megatron when he returns.”

“…Well, when you put it like _that._ ”

The sarcasm was lost on Shockwave, or perhaps more accurately, he just did not find it worthy enough to be acknowledged. Meticulously, he wrenched an arm free and went about setting up a connection. Starscream’s fighting spirit had not subsided completely, but subdued perhaps, figuring that if he had to go through with this, then the quicker it was started, the sooner it would be completed. His protests made the process take longer than required, but the other mech was persistent if nothing else, a single claw scraping along until he found a port and coaxed it open.

He hissed softly at the touch, reprimanding with, “Not so rough, idiot!”

 **User Shockwave requesting data transfer. Do you accept?**

Out of anything that had been said about these kinds of events, a good ninety percent of them were overly-romanticized lies, more than likely made up by the Autobots themselves. There was no sense of unity and in fact…it was rather anticlimactic, considering the increased proximity that was made. Not that Starscream was _complaining,_ mind you. The last thing he wanted was any sort of intimacy with the poorest excuse for a sentient robot this side of space, or anywhere else, for that matter. The act was humiliating rather than pleasurable.

 **Whatever.**

 **Do you accept?**

 **YES, ALREADY!**

Permission granted, the information onslaught was immediate, and so was the impending migraine. The sensations invoked by this process were difficult to describe; it was one of those few instances explained better as firsthand experience.

Starscream hissed again, arching against the other as he concentrated on controlling the flow of it all, but it was too much, too quick, and Shockwave didn’t hold back on unloading every gigabyte he held into him. As a whole, the data might have been distinguishable, each image forming one complete file, but downloading it piece by piece as he was, he was quickly overwhelmed. The few that he caught were blurs, zeros and ones, sometimes coming together to form colors or words or impressions. All the senses they felt didn’t _really_ come to life, but the mind was a powerful tool when provoked and could be rather convincing.

 **Data transfer complete.**

As quickly as it had begun, there was a halt in the activity, Shockwave cutting himself off from him as soon as the one-hundred-percent symbol appeared. The return to normalcy as Decepticons knew it was like an ice cold shock-blast to his frame, Starscream wondering for what felt like an eternity if he was still capable of movement and if it was worth aggravating the headache situated smack dab in the center of his forehead to do so.

Groggily glancing down at the weight still situated on his front, he decided that, yes, it would be _absolutely_ worth it, but only if he could produce the required energy to shove the spy off of him and onto the dirty ground. He managed to get a knee up and give a sound nudge against the other, but it wasn’t powerful enough to rock him, so he kicked him again, hoping that if he did it enough, Shockwave would catch the hint and move under his own blasted willpower. Less energy he had to waste that way.

After his third or fourth try, Shockwave released a grunt and pushed himself up on hands and knees, shaking his head once and seemingly able to return to full capacity. Notably a bit envious of this fact, he was tempted to kick him one final time due to the principle of the thing. Or out of spite. Or both.

“I will ensure that the ship steers clear of this region. Wait five cycles before returning to base for the Autobot vessel to be well out of range. Can you manage that all right?”

“I hate you.”

“That would be a yes, then.”

Shockwave transformed first into his disguise, face and other exterior parts shifting until he was stouter, shorter, then into his vehicular mode, and without a single farewell, he presumably moved away to return to the Autobot ship. The stupid dust-huffer – Starscream vowed to remember this day; he would even have a multitude of punishments designed if his processor wasn’t already promising to melt on him.

He remained splayed there until his internal clock read the appropriate time, then stayed well past that, spite dictating that he ignore the other’s petty command to his liking. The flier’s complaining systems had nothing to do with it, either. Eventually, he sat up with a grunt, having wasted enough time, and went about returning to base with little hurry. All he had to look forward to upon his arrival was lousy _monitor duty,_ and it went without saying that he thought such a thing could wait; it wasn’t like it was going anywhere soon.

The docking bay was already open when he got there, accompanied by a welcoming party of one – Blitzwing, meaning Megatron was back, too. The triple-changer was giving him a smug expression as he landed, his hand rising in start of the lecture or bad news he was surely about to give, but Starscream was in no mood to put up with such nonsense.

Raising his own arm, he roughly shoved his null-ray in the other Decepticon’s face and said in a murderous voice, “Test me, I _dare you._ ”

“Well, hello to you, too,” the other cooed, letting out an amused cackle before suddenly snapping back with his own retort: “GET THAT OUT OF MY FACE, OR IT’S COMING OFF.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Starscream scoffed and pointedly shoved it in closer. “I’m in no mood for the likes of _you_ right now.”

“You do appear to have scuffled with a meteor and, might I add, notably lost,” Blitzwing observed idly.

The second in command bristled at that, pushing him away and walking towards the entrance to the ship. His hate for holding conversations with the nitwit was more strenuous and intense than his longing to obtain a good enough excuse for beating him to scrap. Besides, he had something more important to occupy his time.

“Lord Megatron wishes to see you; you’d best go to him,” Blitzwing informed the flier’s back, but it went unnoticed.

Starscream hummed a jaunty tune as he walked, managing to multitask by doing that and trying to open the files Shockwave had given him. At least, that was the plan.

 **Access denied.**

Well, that couldn’t be right. He attempted another method, tweaking some things and shuffling around folders until he stumbled across something that looked promising. The results were the same. Snarling darkly, he entered a couple possible passwords and resorted to some basic hacking techniques.

 **Access denied.**

His good spirits ruined, he started the proverbial equivalent of banging his fists against the locked goods, his rough treatment ultimately generating this:

 **Accessible only to the Supreme Leader of the Decepticons. That isn’t you, Starscream.**

Apparently, Shockwave had had the good sense to foresee this outcome and plan accordingly, the lousy sneak. Starscream was so engrossed in his objecting and utter disbelief at being thwarted by the two-faced creep that he didn’t watch where he was going, grinding to a halt a scant few inches from Megatron’s front as he rounded a corner.

“Ah! Oh, uh, Lord Megatron! I was just coming to see you. I take it the mission was successful?” he floundered slightly, automatically resorting to his brown-nosing ways.

His commander looked down his nose at him, in that stoic way that was insulting and cold and _ugh,_ he despised that look! The flier wouldn’t have needed bribing to be talked into wiping that belittling expression off the other’s face, were he in the right position to do so, of course. _Someday, someday, someday,_ he chanted.

“Did you expect anything less?” the Decepticon leader asked, rhetorically, before coolly stating, “I just received a notice from operative Shockwave that you obtained some very important information for me.”

 _That blasted, conniving…_ Starscream thought, straining to keep a tick from affecting his left optic and giving away his thoughts on the spy, his nervous smile growing a bit wider before he determined it safe to reply without his voice cracking or death threats flying out.

“No, well, maybe, I mean, yes, I did. I went to retrieve it as _quickly_ as I could; no need to keep you waiting!”

“Well, then where is it?” Megatron demanded, mimicking Starscream’s earlier posture and holding out his hand for a storage device that didn’t exist.

He couldn’t help it – he whimpered.

**Epilogue**

_After Not Enough Time For Starscream’s Tastes Has Passed:_

 _I cannot believe this. What did I ever do to deserve this?_ lamented Starscream, finding himself once again stuck staring at various screens and grainy video feed. He pointedly ignored remembering any attempts on his leader’s life, ill thoughts, bad wishes, evil tidings, efforts at backstabbing, and insulting things he may have done both behind and in the presence of Megatron in the past. In his mind, he was doing everyone a _favor_ – really, who would be a better commander than he?

Megatron was depriving his public of his intelligence and shining presence by cooping him up in here! Instead of rallying the troops to invade Cybertron, he was slumped over the machine, resting his head on his arms and contemplating recharge, if simply to retain his sanity. He was bored beyond reason and counting all the different shaped keys and other buttons on the console for the fiftieth instance.

Honestly, Megatron could be such a spiteful pain in the aft about certain matters.

 _Well, when I become supreme ruler, this won’t be a problem anymore. I’ll order all monitors destroyed…or maybe I’ll keep them around to torture prisoners._

He blatantly yawned, not worried about anyone catching him doing it since no one was present, a fact that was both a good and a bad thing. Even the company of his idiot associates would be preferable to this duty; the notion would make him disgusted if he didn’t reason that verbal brawls were never dull around here. Halfway through averaging his score of whom he could have gotten riled up the quickest there came a notice of an incoming signal, interrupting his calculations. The reprieve was appreciated nonetheless, and without even bothering to lift his head, he flipped the appropriate switches and went through the usual motions.

“You’ve reached the Decepticon vessel Nemesis. State your business or suffer the consequences.”

The screens shutting off and then rebooting had him finally lifting his head, face twitching into some semblance of dismay and shock as a familiar face appeared super-sized before him.

Not bothering with anything else, Starscream, matter-of-factly, said, “I’m hanging up.”

“I have a request for you,” Shockwave went on to say, as if he hadn’t spoken at all.

The second-in-command was halfway to cutting the connection when his clawed finger stilled and he turned a suspicious eye on the other, giving his image a harsh once-over, trying to discern his level of honesty from his appearance alone. As predicted, it held no answers for him.

“Oh yeah?”

A picture of a tiny chip appeared in one of the corners of a screen as the other said, “Seeing as you did such a wonderful delivery job last time, I figured you wouldn’t mind doing a miniscule pickup somewhere-”

The flier ripped a fistful of wires from the console, and the screens went dead.

-Fin-


End file.
